You’ll note Monton’s science background is not front and center: He’s a philosopher.

No matter how often the philosophers tell us that somebody should be watching out for all the damage flying pigs could do to aircraft and parked cars, we are obligated to point out that pigs don’t fly.

Monton will argue for federal regulation of flying pigs intelligent design at Old Main Chapel in Boulder, Tuesday, October 28, at 7:30 p.m. Douglas Groothuis, the Constructive Curmudgeon and philosopher at a Denver seminary, may be there to lead the standing ovation, and to distribute newspapers to protect the audience from flying pigs as they go back to their cars.

(The lecture series is hosted by Alistair Norcross, a philosophy prof at Colorado University who usually argues for scalar utilitarianism. I guess he’s not bothered to check out the usefulness of intelligent design — or, more accurately, its uselessness.)

Whatever the status of evolution — and the National Academy of Sciences recognizes the theory of evolution as so well demonstrated as to be beyond doubt — one should worry that there is much less evidence for intelligent design creationism.

Since 1990, there have been about 180,000 peer-review papers published on evolution, supporting it or explaining it. In that same time, there have been two papers published on intelligent design, neither laying out a defense of the idea nor even describing what a hypothesis for it would be. One of the papers was retracted.

We are limited by what is available in the universe to study, yes. ID advocates want us to close our eyes to what is on that table.

It is and interesting find to see that evolutionist are apt on this ” ever seeming to make a dent in their ignorance?” and “I don’t think I really understood how those proponents could be so adamantly ignorant of the Theory of Evolution”. First of you dont even have a theory it is just a hypothesis. look at the facts! if the field of evolution is abounding with facts apparently i like many people dont see any facts even acknoledging evolution.

natural selection? so mother nature is some chick out their? under my feet?
naturaly everything formed together, right? so isnt that natural selection (mother nature) in a form of the so to speak forms.

I am not a creationist i just dont see the facts in evolution (a i dont believe in some higher calling but their has to be a better way the mother nature got us all here than evolution and creation)

Have you ever noticed how you can tell a proponent of Creationism or Intelligent Design the facts about evolution without ever seeming to make a dent in their ignorance? I don’t think I really understood how those proponents could be so adamantly ignorant of the Theory of Evolution until I read this psychological study of authoritarian followers by Bob Altemeyer. It seems no effort to educate them in Evolutionary Theory is likely to prevail because they follow their authoritarian leaders, rather than deal rationally with reason and evidence.

the evolution formula for making a iuniverse nothing+nothing=two elements+time=92 natural elements+time=all physical laws and a copletely structured universe of galaxies, systems, stars, planets, and moons orbiting in perfect balance and order

this is the evolutionary formula for making life
dirt+water+time=living creatures

Doug, the philosophy of physics doesn’t appear to be physics. Intelligent design doesn’t fail at the political philosophical level. It fails as science.

Philosophically, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s an interesting “what if” exercise. So far the philosophers have missed the critical point that science isn’t grounded in “what if,” but instead in “what is.” I’m not sure how philosophers test their ideas — my sneaking suspicion is that too many simply fail to test their ideas at all — but science is tested on the lab bench and in the real world. It’s not a philosophical exercise. Sometimes even scientists get left behind by this real-world testing: Mach rejected atomic theory, Einstein rejected the nonlocality aspects of quantum physics.

But neither of them went to school boards to present fantastic, philosophically-correct but scientifically-erroneous claims against the theory, if for no other reason, they lacked the evidence to refute the theory. In my opinion, this makes them morally superior to intelligent design advocates. They do not ask others to share their blinders, and they do not insist that their ideas should be taught without any corroboration from the real world, from the world of Spinoza’s God as Einstein would have put it, or from the world into which God breathed life, as Darwin would have put it. Einstein famously said he didn’t believe God shoots dice with the universe.

Einstein didn’t insist we shake our fists at God for His failing to comport to Einstein’s views. Intelligent design advocates do insist we shake our fists at God, and I find that unacceptable, especially in high school science classes. That’s not a proper role for science, nor for science teachers (not even in parochial schools).

That’s the difference between those great scientists left behind by scientific discovery: They understood they didn’t have the evidence. Intelligent design advocates pretend they do have the evidence, and take great umbrage whenever they are asked to produce it. When wearing The Emperor’s New Clothes, any breeze is an unwelcome gust.

You dismiss the man and the arguments unfairly. This guy is smart and fair. I was there. It is ad hominem to dismiss him because he is a philosopher. He is trained in the philosophy of physics and is very knowledgeable.

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